"Well that didn't take long. Last week we posted our BBX (now BlackBerry 10) Roadmap Preview for 2012, where we dropped a number of new codenames into the mix beyond the already photographed BlackBerry London. Lisbon, Nevada and Milan were among the codenames of upcoming QNX-based phones mentioned, but the details we're still pretty slim.

With the first image of BlackBerry Milan above, things are getting more clear for the next generation of BlackBerry 10 phones. While we don't have any specs just yet for Milan, the photo above says a lot. It's a slider BlackBerry, featuring the physical full qwerty keyboard that BlackBerry addicts know and love. And I'm hearing all of these next generation BlackBerry devices sport amazing displays (higher pixel density than the iPhone 4's retina display), which will really add to the sex appeal here. It's interesting to note that the design on this one seems to merge together two looks: at the top are rounded corners, similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, while along the bottom we have the sharper edges simliar to the photo of BlackBerry London. There's still time for RIM to tweak things up before locking down final hardware design for manufacturing so I'll be curious to see if things change up from here at all by the time we get this phone in our hands.

This image also gives us a big hint as to how the traditional BlackBerry experience will evolve on BlackBerry 10. Gone is the optical trackpad, call, hang-up and menu and back buttons from the main navigation area of the phone (where the BlackBerry logo is in this image). This means we can assume a much more PlayBook like experience moving forward, even on BlackBerry 10 phones that have a full qwerty. Expect a lot of bezel gestures! Just looking at the phone you know some of that one-handed ease of use of the traditional BlackBerry experience will be sacrificed here, but I don't think many people will care about that given how much more modern and intuitive the touchscreen user interface will be.

Overall, pretty damn exciting. A full, BIG touchscreen along with a physical keyboard on the next-generation BlackBerry 10 OS could be the ultimate phone for a LOT of people out there in 2012. Keep it locked to CrackBerry for more info as we get it!"